One thought on “Limited Resources 387 – Amonkhet First Impressions”

I *think* where we’re going to end up with on this format has a lot to do with the fact that you don’t feel very clever for happening to have the Forsake the Worldly (or whatever).

It feels *terrible* to be on the receiving end of the blowout from the maindeck situational card. So we might ask the question, “Well, fine, it feels bad to receive a blowout–but is that at least equaled by the fun your opponent had in *delivering* that blowout?” And here, I think the answer is, “No, no it isn’t.” Being blown out isn’t fun, but also, when *I’m* the one blowing someone out, I don’t feel particularly smart or empowered by that. It’s just like, “Oh, *shrug*, guess I had it. Guess I’m not cycling this card now.” And to my opponent, I kind of want to apologize, more than anything. So this is just not a fun experience for either player, really.

Therefore, I don’t think the issue is as much with the *amount* of cycling as with it being on so many of these classically situational cards. I get the temptation to make those cards, from a design perspective–“Well, Amonkhet has cycling, and we do a Threaten effect in most large sets. So how is the Threaten in Amonkhet going to be different, or how is it going to have a twist? I know–let’s give it cycling!” But I think at some point someone might have taken a step back and thought about how that affects the players’ level of fun in their experiences.

P.S. Regarding all the “groan test” cards in the format, I think that category of cards should now be called “whales,” after Aethertide Whale. It both signifies their outsize effect on games and calls them out as the elephant in the room of any otherwise good format. 😉